Arabic Language Speaking Anxiety Among University Students in Central Java

This survey research was performed to identify the students’ level of Arabic language speaking anxiety and to determine any significant difference in their speaking anxiety based on their personal background. A total of 322 Arabic language students from six State Islamic Universities in Central Java were chosen purposively to participate in this study. The data were collected by distributing the Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) developed by Balemir (2009). The data were analysed using Winstep version 3.73 from Rasch model and IBM SPSS version 23. The result from logit measure and Wright map indicated that majority of the students experienced the moderate level of speaking anxiety which means that they felt anxious only in some situations in the muhadatsah class. This was happened because of their maturity (age) so that they were able to control their anxiety. The independent sample t-test result indicated that their speaking anxiety varied in terms of their gender and previous experience in learning muhadatsah, while their origin did not have significant role in their speaking anxiety. The one-way ANOVA test showed that mothers’ education level plays a significant role in the students’ speaking anxiety. The higher their mothers’ education level, the lower speaking anxiety they experience.